Kara no Kyoukai Comes to Region 1

[TheSubtleDoctor]

...but it ain't for free.
Source[quote="ANN"]Aniplex of America announced on Monday that it will release ufotable's entire Kara no Kyoukai - the Garden of sinners film series in an English-subtitled Blu-ray Disc box in North America on February 8, 2011. The eight-disc box will include the seven theatrical chapters of the franchise plus the bonus Final Chapter that will be available for the first time in February. The online retailer Right Stuf will be the exclusive distributor.

The Japanese Blu-ray Disc box of the film series will ship less than a week earlier on February 2. Right Stuf will offer the North American version for US$398.98. (The Japanese release will sell for 52,500 yen or about US$620, although that is the suggested retail price before discounts.)

Kinoko Nasu's original novels center around Shiki Ryougi —]Wealthy otaku, throw ya hands in the ai-ya.

Seriously though, Bandai Visual tried this with stuff like Patlabor and it didn't work too well. This must be what it feels like to be a Japanese anime fan.

[blkmage]

A few corrections. This isn't exactly a North American release. The contents are pretty much exactly the same as the Japanese release except for the translated booklet. Remember, both North America and Japan are in Region A for BDs and we already knew the Japanese BDs were getting English subtitles. Price is also pretty much the same, since that's about the same price on amazon.co.jp. Basically, all this does is simplify the import process for those of us who were already considering dropping the monies for it.

Also lololol, they're already crediting Kajiura for Madoka Magica, even though it hasn't aired yet.

[CrimsonRyu17]

Disappointing thread is disappointing.

Unfortunately I can't afford more than half a thousand for a Blu-Ray set of movies I adore but have already seen. Hopefully they'll release a DVD movie set or at least release the movies themselves.

[Atria35]

Disappointing thread is disappointing.

Unfortunately I can't afford more than half a thousand for a Blu-Ray set of movies I adore but have already seen. Hopefully they'll release a DVD movie set or at least release the movies themselves.

Rightstuf is offering it for about $400

[CrimsonRyu17]

Rightstuf is offering it for about $400

Yes, I know. I was talking about the original release.

Slightly less than half a thousand isn't appealing either.

[Atria35]

Yes, I know. I was talking about the original release.

Slightly less than half a thousand isn't appealing either.

Oh! Sorry. I hadn't realized that you'd seen that, since you had commented on over half a thousand...

But I know that there isn't that much of a difference betweent the two prices

[blkmage]

To be honest, -$200 is enough to get me to consider buying it.

To be honest, this offering is confirming my hypothesis about Japan's new pricing strategy. I first noticed it when it was announced that the Nanoha movie BD version would have English subs. My suspicion is that Japan is forgoing US releases of extremely niche titles and just including English subs on BD. There are a number of reasons for this.

The first reason is that, like I mentioned before, North America and Japan are both in Region A. This means that, theoretically, I could buy Japanese releases and watch them in all their nihongonese glory. What this also means is that Japan could theoretically reverse-import American releases (presumably) at prices that are actually reasonable. You can see why Japan does not like this. You can see the kind of pricing compromise in the Gundam UC BDs, which are more expensive than we're used to and cheaper than they're used to. This brings me to the second point.

The only reason Gundam UC can even get away with that is because there is a large enough base of Gundam fans that will make up for the losses on both sides. This is not true for very niche titles like Nanoha and Kara no Kyoukai. Yeah, Kara no Kyoukai is popular online, but that doesn't translate to sales. First of all, consider the base of foreign TYPE-MOON fans. These are the people who will have played Tsukihime and Fate/stay night, not the people who watched or bought the anime. There are not too many people who play fan-translated visual novels and those are the base of people who are the most likely customers.

Of course, this is true in Japan, but there's a difference: in Japan, those people are used to buying things at exorbitant prices. And this is where the new pricing strategy comes in. I think that the base of people outside of Japan who have the same purchasing habits as the Japanese otaku has become large enough that they can use this pricing strategy for extremely popular niche titles. Note that the titles need to be popular and niche; this won't work for FMA and it won't work for True Tears. These are the people who would have imported Japanese BDs anyway and I suspect that they've determined there are a significant number of people who are on the fence about KnK that don't know about importing, but would be willing to pay that money.

This particular strategy is even easier because there's no need for manufacturing of North American specific packaging or discs. Just send a bunch of Japanese ones across the ocean, and you've got your North American versions. And the only real additional cost is in translating the booklet, since everything else is exactly the same. I'm one of those people who was seriously considering importing the BD box, but didn't want to deal with amazon.co.jp. Now, that barrier has been lowered and I'm seriously planning on getting it.

[Fish and Chips]

Right Stuf will offer the North American version for US$398.98.

Oh those crazy Japanese prices.

What I've seen of Garden of Sinners is pretty decently put together, but this package would have to run under $200 for me to even briefly consider it (which would be somewhat generously $25 per movie).

Fortunately, I'm more a fan of Nasu's worldbuilding than his actual storytelling ability (which is...something), so I imagine I'll survive without it.

[blkmage]

So I was finally able to pick mine up at the post office today.

The box itself is very, very nice. It's fancy and feels sturdy and has a ribbon and the art for the box is pretty awesome too and feels like it's on that glossy printed stuff. The main contents are a dark blue/purple velvet-covered case for the discs, arranged in a 2x2 grid of four discs for each side of the case. The artbook was red velvet and contained all of the promotional art, cover art, and bonus art for each of the movies. There's also a translation booklet for the artbook. The movies look and sound great from when I was jumping through each of the discs, as expected. The translation for the English subs was fine too. I can't wait to sit down and watch the entire thing again sometime.